Why Characters Do What They Do #amwriting

As if it isn’t enough that we writers have to figure out what characters do, we also have to figure out why characters do what they do. Can’t they do anything for themselves?

Some writers say, yes, their characters take over and do stuff and they (the writers) only need to watch and write it down. If purgatory is true, I’m going to do a fair stretch in purgatory for the sin of envy committed against those writers.

Sometimes they even get cheeky, and they’re like, “Oh, you need me to go there and do that in order for the plot to work out, eh? What’s my motivation?”

I’m like, “You’re motivation is, I can stick you in a drawer for twenty years or so, chummy.”

But that never works.

If I’m stuck that way, and I need a character to go there and do that and the character can’t think of a reason why, it often helps to go back over the other characters’ story arcs and connections.

Say I need for Joe to be at The Sundown Cafe on the Winter Solstice so he’ll be there when Brenda, who turns out to know a tidbit of information that will help Joe find the maguffin, comes in. Joe’s like, “Why? You never put me there before. Why would I go there now?” I can look back and see that his next door neighbor and friend who carries a subplot is a Pagan, and I can have the neighbor invite him to a Solstice gathering at the Cafe. Brenda is a reporter, and she comes to do a human interest story on the gathering, the neighbor having submitted it through her email address as a possible item for her. BOOM!

Sometimes, a character’s motivation can be their own, but sometimes it can be a side-effect of somebody else’s motivation. Remember the connections between the characters, and the six-degrees-of-separation thing.

If nothing else, it might drive your character so nuts he says, “Oh, never mind! I’ll go there and do that and here’s why!”

I learned the power of simple aggravation from parenting.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Make somebody do something in terms of somebody else’s motivation.

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I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.
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Me, too! That’s why I like the “ask them 10 questions and free-write their answers” exercise. It helps me dig in and brings their voices out. Gee, that sounded a lot more grisly than I meant for it to….Marian Allen would love to share..Catsanity

Characters are the best part of a story and the reason is just that: they ask a lot of questions of you and you need to answer all those questions if you want to tell the story in any logical and meaningful way.

And it’s so fun when they know excactly why they do something and they guide the story, but you have to figure everything out. Sometimes it’s a very long process for me, but I have to tell you: I always learn somethign new on that journey 🙂JazzFeathers would love to share..8 Sentence Sunday on Dieslepunks #29

That’s a different way of looking at it, JazzFeathers, and it’s a way I like: THEY know, and I have to figure it out. As for learning something new, that’s so true. You’re never exactly the same person after finishing a book as you were when you began it. Thanks for visiting!Marian Allen would love to share..Catsanity

Welcome to my site!

I've been a writer since I could think, and a cook since I was in middle school. I'm also an inveterate this-and-thatter. So this blog, which is supposed to be professional, kind of isn't. I blog about anything I damn well please. Oh--and food. Don't forget the food.

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